Thrusting and sinistral wrenching in a pre-Eocene HP-LT Caribbean accretionary wedge (Samaná Peninsula, Dominican Republic)

Abstract

The North Caribbean margin is an example of an oblique convergence zone where the currently exposed HP–LT rocks are systematically localised close to strike-slip faults. The petrological and structural study of eclogite and blueschist facies rocks of the peninsula of Samaná (Hispaniola, Dominican Republic) confirms the presence of two different metamorphic units. The former diplays low metamorphic grade (Santa Barbara unit), characterized by the assemblage albite - lawsonite (7.5 ± 2 kbar and 320 ± 80 °C). The latter (Punta Balandra unit), thrust over the first unit towards the NW, and is characterized by the occurrence of blueschist and eclogite facies assemblages (13 ± 2 kbar and 450 ± 70 °C), within oceanic metasediments. The isothermal retrograde evolution occurred in epidote-blueschist facies conditions (9 ± 2 kbar and 440 ± 60 °C). The late greenschist facies evolution is contemporaneous with conjugate NW–SE extension and E–W strike-slip faulting. This late extension is for regional dome and basin structures. According to their lithotectonic, structural and metamorphic characteristics, the metamorphic nappe stack of Samaná may be interpreted as a fragment of an accretionary wedge thrust onto the North American continental shelf. Evolution of the wedge was associated with the active subduction of the North American plate, under the Greater Antilles arc, at the level of the Puerto Rico trench. During active Late Cretaceous convergence, the HP rocks were initially exhumed, within the accretionary prism, by thrusting parallel to the NE–SW direction of convergence. Subsequently, during the Eocene collision between the Caribbean plate and the North American margin, the installation of a transtensive regime of E–W direction supports the local development of conjugate extension of NW–SE direction that facilitated the final phase of exhumation of the HP rocks.